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14 May 2017

Author Interview: Blythe Gifford on RUMORS AT COURT

Today, we welcome Blythe Gifford, a long time contributor to
the Unusual Historicals blog.Her twelfth
novel, RUMORS AT COURT from the Harlequin Historical line, has just been
published and an excerpt was published here https://unusualhistoricals.blogspot.com/2017/05/excerpt-thursday-rumors-at-court-by.html on Thursday.She’s offering a free print copy to one randomly
chosen commenter, so leave a comment at the end of the interview with your
email address before next Sunday, May 21, for a chance to win.

First, here’s a bit about the book.It is the third book in the Royal Wedding
Series, and is set in England, late in the Fourteenth Century. At this time,
England’s earlier success against France in the Hundred Years War has slipped
away and the once extensive English holdings on the continent are in danger.
There is unease in the country and rumors abound about the royal family and the
intentions of the enemy.

The story includes a number of real historical figures, as has been the case
with the other two Royal Wedding Stories and today’s interview revolves around
the joys and challenges of putting real people into historical fiction.

You have had real
historical figures in nearly every book.Why?

I’m drawn to stories about real historical events and often,
a story is sparked from wondering how a specific event would affect someone
caught up in it.To answer that
question, my characters need to interact with the real people who were part of
it.After all, this collection of events
we call “history,” is not dates and facts and battles.It is what people caused to happen and/or how
they reacted to what happened to them.

What do you like
about having real people in the book?

To me, my characters are just as “real” as the historically
documented ones.And I think

Portrait of John of Gaunt, painted more than 100 years after his death

they, or
people like them, might have actually existed, if we could just peek behind the
curtain that hides the past from us.So
to make the situation real, it has to be as close to real people and events as
I can imagine.And I have discovered
that when I am forced to understand a character in order to make that person live on
the page, it helps bring the period to life.This can be particularly true of recognized historical figures, who, too
often, have been turned into stick figures by the history books.

What are the
drawbacks and challenges of including historical figures?

When a character, a king, for example, is well known, there
is a certain perspective of the kind of person he was and it is difficult to
violate that.Since I write primarily in
the medieval time period, details of temperament are scarce.Even contemporaneous portraits for this
period are nearly impossible to find.This
is particularly true of women, for whom, often, it is hard to pinpoint such
basic information as dates of birth and death.I’ve included many well-known (at least, to medievalists) women in my
books:Alice Perrers and Joan of Kent,
for example.For most of these women, not
a single full-length, scholarly biography has ever been written.

Ostensible portrait of Constanza (Constance) of Castile

That is certainly true of Constanza of Castile, who appears
in RUMORS AT COURT.Most of what we know
of her must be inferred from meagre references in other sources, particularly
biographies of her husband, John of Gaunt.Katherine Swynford, Gaunt’s mistress and also a character in the book,
has been slightly better covered, primarily because of Anya Seton’s novel KATHERINE.For me, for this story, that was a particular
challenge because I have known, and loved, Katherine’s story for most of my
life.From that point of view, which was
Katherine’s as a heroine, Constanza was little more than Gaunt’s means to the
throne and a vessel for his child.Constanza was portrayed as an unpleasant,
overly religious woman who kept to herself and hated England.Suddenly, in my book, I had to understand and
portray both women, in a way that made sense for the story.It made me much more sympathetic.

And do you ever fudge
the facts?

In order to tell a story, you inevitably have to streamline,
leave things out, tell the essentials that affect this story, but may not tell
the whole story.For example, Geoffrey
Chaucer,

Possible portrait of Katherine Swynford

English poet and author of “The Canterbury Tales,” was part of Gaunt’s
household and married to Katherine’s sister.It’s a wonderful historical tidbit, but I could not find a way to drop
it into the story without making it feel gratuitous.I did include a reference to love such as “the
poet” wrote of.And my editor, who knows
the period well, recognized the poet as Chaucer and the allusion to his “Book
of The Duchess.”But you do not have to
know that background to understand the story.

My books are historical romance, not non-fiction, but I try
not to violate the reader’s trust.If a
reader goes on to explore more books about the period, and I always hope she
does, my goal is that she will never feel betrayed by my choices.All my books except for the first contain an
author’s afterward, in which I can explain where I took liberties with the
facts and a little of what came after the book ends.

You always use real
historical figures as secondary characters.Have you ever thought of writing a fictionalized biography?

No! That would create too many constraints.I like having my own characters, and drawing
on my own imagination to see their stories develop.I don’t think I could rationalize even the
minor historical license I do take if I were telling the story of a real person.

So now a question for commenters:How do you
feel about real historical figures in fiction?Any examples of books in which it has worked particularly well? Or, have you ever learned something about history from a work of fiction? Leave a comment before May 21 for a chance to win a copy of RUMORS AT COURT.

About the author:

After many years in public relations, advertising and
marketing, Blythe Gifford started writing seriously after a corporate layoff.
Ten years and one layoff later, she became an overnight success when she sold
her first book to the Harlequin Historical line.Since then, she has published ten books,
primarily set in England and on the Scottish Borders, most revolving around
real historical figures and events.For
more information, visit her webpage: www.blythegifford.com, find her on